Monday, January 23, 2012

To The South

How do I even begin to explain a place like this?  It wasn’t cold, not really, but ice and snow layered everything.  How clear and peaceful, the end of the world was; how sharp and dark, her islands.  As desolate as all the tales of the southern continent are, they fail completely to describe her summers: she teems with life.  Birds abound; seals porpoise all about, and whale spouts dot the horizon.  I walked with hundreds of thousands of king penguins; I hiked mountains; I watched humpbacks lunge-feeding; I communed with the albatross.  It would take a colder soul than mine to not be moved by my journey.  I don’t know how my path changed, but I know that it has.  I’m going back.  A phrase oft quoted on the ship: “Antarctica is like a classical mistress; once she has you in her grasp, she’ll never let you go.”  I happily clasp her frozen fingers.


2012-01-11
1/50 sec, f 10.0, ISO 200, 25 mm

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